So true. As a former feral/latchkey kid I am no essentially no-contact with my parents because of how shit they were and still are. I don’t want my kid to ever wonder if I am proud of them or love them so I never miss a chance to say it. Things can happen so fast and tragedy is all too common in the US with a child in public school.

Same. The only time I have ever waited in line for a game release was the midnight launch of The Burning Crusade expansion for WoW and I can’t say it was worth it. Certainly never did it again if that tells you anything.

If you combine that rule with the ability to endlessly stack Draw 2 or Draw 4 cards, you have what I think may be the most evil version of Uno that can be played. We called it Thermo-Nuclear Uno (i.e. Mutually Assured Destruction) since you knew that dropping a Draw 4 would almost certainly lead to someone being buried in cards and it might even be you. Even if you manage to dodge the stack, payback is coming and you won’t get lucky every time. I can remember games that we would finally just quit after an hour since no one would ever be able lay down their last card. Merging two decks can make this even more brutal and cuts down on interplay shuffles too.

Thank you kind stranger, I did not know about that command and will try it out. I typically avoid alt-tab with fullscreen in games for this reason and have to force quit the applications since the screen will be frozen.

I still tend to see an issue with setting up resolution and window settings on new games where the screen will stop refreshing once I commit the change and then I have to close the application and restart it to continue. I guess I could stick with windowed but it was my understanding that variable refresh rate only really works in full screen mode.

Too right. I got pushed out of the Windows ecosystem by the forced obsolescence of Win10 and after dabbling with an older version of Ubuntu in the past and iOS, Cinnamon felt like I was hanging on to what I was trying to leave. GNOME just worked for me functionally and aesthetically. I use Win11 at work and hate every minute of it.

It was at least on the version I tried and it was super annoying trying to figure out why it wouldn’t detect my GPU which was an RX 9060XT and not supported by the default Linux Kernel. Once I upgraded the Kernel, that got my AMDGPU stuff working but I could not overcome other graphics issues like persistent tearing (even with V-sync).

This is the exact same reason I ultimately gave up on Linux Mint and switched to Fedora. I could not get rid of tearing and I fragged X11 (and made my OS un-bootable) on multiple occasions trying to fix it using recommended tweaks to config files. It was looking like a Wayland based solution was what I needed so I chose to move on.

GNOME haters can just put away their knives since I am no fan boy; I just wanted to completely escape anything resembling a MicroSlop experience and Workstation gave me a clean DE, more current package releases, HDR, Variable refresh rate , and solid gaming performance with a minimal amount of fuss. CachyOS was next on my list if Fedora didn’t work and I am still considering trying it out someday. That said, there is no question that making the switch to Linux as a new user can be daunting and I would still suggest Mint for older hardware with less of a gaming focus.

I don’t “need” to really…just noticed that there is a newer version with added functionality and was curious about the process since I had never done it before. I have been using basic keyboards like membrane and chichlet styles but I have been interested in getting a mechanical model for a long time. Finally decided to go for it after having to reset my 13 year old MS curve for the 3rd time this week in order to log into my computer.

So this also purges one more element of the despicable microslop ecosystem from my life and gives me what is shaping up to be a better typing experience as well. Based on the feedback, it looks like I should just hold off on making any changes until something more groundbreaking or critical needs to be done to my keeb.

You bring up another important positive for the instant pot: when I wash the rice, I tend to scrub hand-fulls between my fingers under running water and swirl it around as the bowl fills. Since the inner pot is stainless steel, I am not worried about damaging a non-stick coating like you tend to see on other rice cookers. Additionally, once the cooking cycle is complete, I have learned that letting the pressure drop over a period of about 10 mins before venting helps release the rice from the bottom of the inner bowl so sticking isn’t really a problem and I never get any burnt rice either.

The one thing I am not sure about is how well the rice would keep if it is left on warm all day like you describe for households that make a large batch for multiple meals. I typically make just enough for the meal at hand and some leftovers for fried rice later so I suppose the instant pot serves it purpose well but it may not be the solution for everyone.

This is really interesting regarding the extra water and I suppose it makes sense with the more basic models that have a vent hole. I have been using an Instant Pot for a bunch of years now and have a custom pressure cooking setting that gives me fluffy and perfect brown rice using water at a 1:1 ratio. I believe the cook time must be slightly longer than the white rice setting(default button). 21 mins and about 10 mins to cooldown before venting gets perfect results 100% of the time.
I have been tempted to invest in a more traditional cooker like a Zojirushi thanks in large part to “Uncle Roger” but paid $45 for the Instant Pot and I don’t really use it for anything else.

Slight correction may be in order here…the target of your ire should probably be the conservative fundamentalists (aka Y’all-Qaeda) in the US; the Satanic Temple folks are generally atheists and seem pretty chill to an outsider like me.

Just as an update to this, I noticed that there was a new version of gnome control center (49.4-2.fc43) in the latest update push for Fedora so I took a chance and did the upgrade hoping it would include a fix to this issue. Based on initial testing on my two machines at home which were affected and needed to be downgraded to 49.1-1.fc43, it looks like this new version resolves the line-out audio problem. Thanks again for your efforts to raise awareness of this and your suggested workaround.

I checked it last night and it looks like Lutris switched the game to Proton-GE in the runner options so I am guessing that requires a bit more time to spool up in the background. Switched it back to a version of Wine and it was back to loading immediately. I am all for updates that fix things or add features but it is a bit annoying when settings get changed like that and it sets off the need to troubleshoot to figure out what happened. That said, I am trying to get my wife’s Win11 machine working like it did under Win10 and I hate every minute of it and will take these kinds of things as the price of FOSS.

Of course I read your response in more detail as I am posting my own inquiry about this. I will take a look at the Lutris game-config settings and see what they are now. I wish I knew for sure what it was configured as prior to this update. Could you please elaborate on what you had to change from and what you changed it back to? Cheers.

I have only been running one of my GOG.com games via Lutris and it has been working like a charm till this weekend. I was initially concerned/confused when I clicked to launch that game from the link on my dock and it just didn’t do anything. Eventually, the game loaded and seemed OK with no data loss but I was still rather confused about what had changed (I regularly update my Fedora 43 Workstation system, daily or every other day). Can anyone elaborate on the recent changes to how Lutris handles games? I was running Disco Elysium via Wine (I think) and while I can accept the 10-15 second delay in the game startup now that I know something is going on in the background, I would like to have a better understanding of what, if anything, I could change to restore the former configuration.

Hey I tested the downgrade script and it fixed my issue just like you suggested. But of course now my OS wants to update the files back to the version I rolled back from. It doesn’t seem to be a forced update and I updated and upgraded everything before I tried this but I was wondering if the issue will immediately return once I allow the system to go back to version 49.4-1.fc43.

Doesn’t look like there is any way to skip those file updates so I suppose I just need to do the downgrade again if the sound problem returns? Hoping the next revision of gnome-control-center resolves it.

Thank you again for your efforts and information sharing. This is what I love about the Linux community and it is making the transition from commercial slop-ware so much easier.

Thank you for working through this and sharing your findings. I will try this out tonight.

I am seeing the exact same issue on a PC I just put together and loaded Fedora 43 Workstation on. If I hook the 3.5mm jack for the speakers (older Creative Pebbles) to the green port on the back panel it shows up just like OP’s when I try to test; however, if I plug the jack into the headphones port on the case (which is connected to the motherboard audio pins) it detects and works properly. I was also seeing some Dummy Output options with the line out connection in use, and not knowing what it meant, I selected one and this kicked me back to the login screen and gave me an unhelpful kernel alert.

In contrast, the speakers on my other PC, which is also running Fedora 43 Workstation, works fine off of the back panel. Both motherboards are using Realtek audio chips but it may not be the same version since one board is a B650 and one is a B550.

Curious to see what the solution ends up being but I also recently installed pavucontrol on the newer PC so I will try and set the speakers up using the line-out that way. If that doesn’t work I will migrate to bluetooth speakers or just leave things as is.

This is really interesting. I started with Mint-Cinnamon since it sounded like it would be ideal for me as I had no desire to switch to Windows 11 and I needed a daily driver OS; I did not like Mint at all and spent too much time trying to make it work with newer hardware. Fedora Workstation has been a great experience for me and it checks all the boxes with minimal troubleshooting. What is about Arch that made you decide to switch? Genuinely curious as I am all-in on Linux now that I know I can do productivity stuff and gaming so easily and I don’t have to give another dime to MS.